Resettlement
On 8th May 1945, World War II hostilities in Europe ceased, Germany surrendered unconditionally and all Europe revelled in the silence of peace. Thereafter, for...
Active Service 1940-1945
In 2012, I requested my father’s war record from his arrival in Britain in 1940. Usually he would only recount anecdotal stories of his war...
‘The Hero of Westerplatte’
My father often spoke of Uncle Heniek when I was growing up. Like my grandfather, Uncle Heniek, full name Henryk Sucharski, held the rank of...
1945 – 1947 Letters From Far Places
The familiar saying that you never know what’s round the corner, certainly applied to my father’s immediate family. The photographs below taken around 1936 show...
1940 ‘No Official Papers!’
My grandmother Joanna Gryzelda Pach (nee de Massilla Moszoro) was born in Vienna in 1899. I have already mentioned in a previous blog that her...
Veteran of Three Wars
My grandfather, Edward Pach, Austrian born in Vienna, had seen action in three major wars before the age of 50. The Battle of Kock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kock_(1939)...
1939 War and Exile Part 2
Note: During WW2 Hungary was on the side of the Axis Powers led by Germany. At the time of my father’s arrival there, Hungary was...
1939 War and Exile Part 1
One of my cousins once asked my father how he arrived in Scotland in 1939. He replied with the following letter. ‘Dear Elizabeth I shall...
Unfinished Memoirs
Within months of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died while I was in the United States....
1989
Real nationality is humanity, its passport – DNA, its citizenship – Earth. This blog began as a search for my paternal family history but developed...